The present invention relates to a technology of controlling a network and a service.
Such a service has hitherto existed that a terminal as a data arrival destination is changed and a receiving terminal is selected based on a hypothesis about a user's intention drawn from a user peripheral context (such as time/location, personal belonging and a peripheral device) and a past behavior pattern (which will hereinafter be also termed a user context) (refer to, e.g., Patent document 1). Made further in a ubiquitous network is a study about providing a service and information matching most with a user context on the basis of information on an object in the real world (refer to, e.g., Non-Patent document 1, Non-Patent document 2, Non-Patent document 3).
Moreover, communication route control and QoS (Quality of Service) control are conducted by use of a traffic engineering technology with respect to network control when distributing the information. This technology enables the allocation of the network resources, which simultaneously actualizes network load sharing and QoS guarantee. For example, in a state (context) where two types of services, i.e., a best effort type service and a bandwidth guarantee type service exist together in an MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) network, there is such a technology that a bandwidth reserved for the bandwidth guarantee type involves selecting a shortest route to minimize consumption of resources, and a label path of the best effort type involves dynamically changing a traffic flow, whereby the whole network absorbs influence exerted by the bandwidth-guaranteed communications upon the best effort type communications in a way that reduces deterioration of the QoS to the greatest possible degree, which might be caused by preferentially processing packets of the bandwidth guarantee type (refer to, e.g., Patent document 2, Non-Patent document 4.
Further, a technology as another traffic engineering technology is that, for example, the whole network is optimized by searching for a network/application server pair that satisfies the QoS by simultaneously taking account of loads of both of a network and an application server, and uniformly distributes the load of the whole network (refer to Patent document 3).
Moreover, there exists a technology of evaluating a user context, an application QoS requirement and a network context on the occasion of performing handover of a terminal communicating with a first network to a second network (refer to, e.g., Patent document 4). Furthermore, there is a technology of managing a relation between a user and an object read by a reader carried by the user (refer to Patent document 5).    [Patent document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-206670    [Patent document 2] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-236198    [Patent document 3] Publication No. WO/2004/073269    [Patent document 4] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-333639    [Patent document 5] International Application No. PCT/JP2003/002498 (Publication No. WO/2004/080008)    [Non-Patent document 1] Masafumi Katoh, “Strategy of Development of Ubiquitous Network-Utilization of Knowledge Based on Network and Middleware”, [online], Jun. 24, 2004, Ubiquitous Networking Forum, Ubiquitous Strategy Symposium, Internet <URL:http://www.ubiquitous-forum.jp/documents/sympo20040624/index.html>    [Non-Patent document 2] Masayosi Ohhashi, “Context & Profiling-Semantic Web Utilizing Approach”, [online], Jul. 20, 2004, The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, Technical Committee on Ubiquitous and Real-World Oriented Networking (URON), Internet <URL:http://www.ieice.org/cs/uron/workshop2004.html>    [Non-Patent document 3] Kazuo Imai, “Fourth Generation Mobile Network and Development into Ubiquitous”, [online], Jun. 20, 2004, The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, Technical Committee on Ubiquitous and Real-World Oriented Network Shop (URON), Internet <URL:http://www.ieice.org/cs/uron/workshop2004.html>    [Non-Patent document 4] Masafumi Katoh, “Next generation IP network control based on traffic engineering”, [online], Apr. 7, 2004, The ATM Forum ICBN2004, Internet <URL:http://www.atmforum.com/meetings/icbno4-program.html>